Instagram Analytics Enhanced by Next Generation AI

With a channel as important as Instagram – especially for businesses and brands where visuals and lifestyle “sell” – understanding Instagram Analytics is table stakes. So, what should brands focus on? Here’s what!

What Instagram Offers

First things first, Instagram has insights of their own that can help brands strategize on a number of fronts.

Activity shows you how many people visited your profile over the past week, and which day(s) saw the most visits. Additionally, you can see reach and impressions – how many “discovered” your account – for the same period:

This is great information, as you can easily look back at posts and see what you shared on which day to understand the type of content driving the activity.

For further help with that, tab to Content. There you can see posts in order by reach – so you know exactly which ones are performing well, and which ones aren’t:

Choosing “See All” allows you to mix and match by scrolling through various options to see the metrics you’re most interested in over the past week, to the past two years:

Missing from these insights are metrics on Stories – though carousel posts (multi-image) and shopping posts are included.

You can see Impressions of Stories over a 14-day period, which is something:

The Audience tab provides some demographic info about the people interacting with your brand, like Top Locations and Age Range…

As well as Gender and Followers. This last tells you when your followers are most active on the platform – by day and hour:

Again, this is all good stuff – but why stop there when more is available?

What Next Generation AI Offers

So instead of stopping with the knowledge that a particular post got a lot of engagement, and trying to figure out the “why” on your own – you can add insights from comment text and hashtags to increase the precision and value of your data.

But being able to surface the comments for insights lets them know there are fans who want the shirt in other colors – among other things.

Likes alone aren’t very definitive. And even knowing the number of comments – in this case 45 – doesn’t mean they’re all positive.

That really matters when you get into more voluminous comment numbers . . .

Deconstructing the Love

Of the 1,200+ comments on the above McDonald’s post, we can see at a glance there are some that aren’t full of love. The screenshot alone encompasses:

One customer service complaint

One overall brand criticism

One request for retired menu items

When folks interact with your brand, you want those interactions to count for something. Otherwise you’re stabbing in the dark anytime you make changes – hoping to delight your audience, when you could know for sure what they actually want.

Bio text offers an additional level of intel – especially in situations where you lose access to comment text, like with competitor profiles.

Remember, the changes to Instagram’s API late last year limited some of the information available to brands and businesses. But there’s still plenty to work with.

As important as it is to understand how consumers feel about competitors, it’s just as important to know how brands see themselves. Especially if you’re trying to ensure your story is distinctive.

Being able to analyze competitors’ Instagram bios is super useful. For example, if you’re a brand in the quick service restaurant category, you might want to know that Wendy’s is the official hamburger of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA):

It could then be worth following this connection on other social channels to see how the partnership is impacting their brand, and how you can use this information to your brand’s advantage. When you share an audience, all data is relevant.

Similarly, it’s noteworthy that Nike has their iconic tagline as a hashtag in their bio, #JustDoIt:

Granted, the slogan has been in use since 1988, so it’s not that surprising. But if your brand is in the athletic wear category, you might come across other hashtags that do surprise you. And it’s worth tracking these against any branded hashtags you use to see how you stack up against others in your field.

Don’t Take Hashtags for Granted

Speaking of hashtags… They’re so crucial on Instagram that ignoring them would be foolish, but they’ve become a common add-on that aren’t given enough thought.

Instagram’s built-in analytics enable you to identify popular posts, which clue you in to the content your fans are attracted to, of course. But what if you’re taking advantage of Instagram best practices and have 11 hashtags in a given post? Or if you’ve got even more? How do you know which ones are helping your engagement, versus the ones that just don’t matter?

Next Generation AI Analytics solution working with Instagram’s API enable the tracking of 30 hashtags per authorized profile, per rolling 7-day period. This shows you which hashtags are having an impact. And if you have multiple authorized users – if you’re an agency, for example – for a single account, you can track even more and see what is resonating and what’s falling flat.

You can also track the hashtags and comments of influencers you’re working with – as long as you’ve set up the authorizations properly. This lets you collect and analyze post text, media, like counts, comment counts, permalink, bio, follower counts, interests, professions, potential impressions, comment text and comment user names.

And for competitor pages and influencers you can track the same things – with the exceptions of comment text and comment user names.

When you add this sort of data into your overall brand equation across channels, it’s even more useful.

Instagram Analytics + AI Analytics = Major Brand Intel

As great as it is that social channels like Instagram offer insights for business accounts, there’s so much more to be gleaned from adding in Next Generation AI Analytics. We’re talking accurate, robust, next-level insights – all delivered in real-time.

Whatever gives your brand an edge is worth exploring, right? Right!

Ready to see how AI Analytics take Instagram Insights further? Reach out for a one-on-one demo!

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About NetBase

NetBase is an award-winning social media analytics platform that global companies use to run brands, build businesses, and connect with consumers every second. NetBase platform processes millions of social media posts daily for actionable business insights for marketing research, customer service, sales, PR, and product innovation.